La Mesure in Renaissance Music

Marais was one of Lully's most successful protéges. He had a dual career as court viol player to Louis XIV and batteur de mesure (conductor) of the Académie Royale de Musique (later called simply the 'Opéra'). He was a prolific composer of pieces for one, two and three bass viols as well as chamber music and operas.

Baroque Masterpieces - collection of Baroque music in the best performance in the company Sony BMG DHM Artenova. One of the best collections of Baroque music! The greatest works - the legendary performance! Baroque music is a style of European classical music in the period from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque era follows the Renaissance and the Classical period precedes. The main in this music was an expression of emotions. Baroque music - this violence and ecstasy, in contrast to the confidence and independence of the Renaissance.

The cycle of 125 variations that Costanzo Festa composed on the famous melody called La Spagna is conceived on a scale unique during the Renaissance, and may justly be described as a compositional tour-de-force. It has been comparisons to works such as Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations. This budget priced reissue, released for the first time in 2003, features a selection of these variations performed by the Huelgas-Ensemble.

You may remember a film from the early 1970s called Henry VIII & his Six Wives, starring Keith Mitchell, Donald Pleasance, and Charlotte Rampling; it was notable for its score, which not only featured authentic music of the period (nearly unheard-of at the time), but also was, according to David Munrow, “the first historical film in which the music has been scored entirely for historical instruments.

Le Jeune’s distinctive contribution to the French chanson marks him out as one of the genre’s essential figures. He is best known for having given musical voice to the concept of the vers mesure a l’antique. The pioneer of this poetic style, Antoine du Baif, sought to return to the simplicity of Greek verse with its clear rules of scansion. The Protestant Le Jeune responded with polyphonic settings in which melismas are abolished in favour of long or short notes of constant duration, corresponding to the strong/weak accentual patterns of the words. In his hands this seemingly daunting restriction is remarkably flexible, and other composers experimented with it, if only briefly (as in Lassus’s lovely Une puce).